


The Bagastana Cache

by Sister of Silence (Orcbait)



Category: Warhammer 40.000
Genre: Archaeology, F/M, IN SPACE, Inquisition, blatant murder, nobody expects the inquisition, to be a lady
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-22
Updated: 2017-02-22
Packaged: 2018-09-26 07:57:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9874628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Orcbait/pseuds/Sister%20of%20Silence
Summary: Excavation site 347-DS8 was a promising location and Doctor historicus-archaeologos Sarina Zochina-Kathar was certain if they found the fabled artefact here, it would launch her career into academic fame. The fact that a Lord Inquisitor backed their endevour gave it weight and legitimacy beyond anything her previous projects had held. However, very few people willingly enter into agreements with inquisitors, and there's very good reasons for that...





	

The excavation site 347-DS8 had sprawled along the cliff face in the months since they had arrived. Inch by inch the large rock relief had been revealed with painstaking precision and virtually endless patience. Though it already measured over 10 metres in height and 20 metres in width, it showed no sign of being anywhere near completely excavated. The relief featured a host of giant-sized figures in imposing profile. They wore elaborate kaftan over ancient battle-plate, their braided hair held by headband or crown. They gathered solemnly around the central motif of a winged scarab. The relief's particular style and singular grandeur echoed one of Terra’s most ancient civilisations. However, they were not on Terra.

  
Doctor historicus-archaeologos Sarina Zochina-Kathar mopped her forehead as she sat up. She had braided her black hair into cornrows and wore a wide brimmed fedora against the sun. The red giant around which Aeganon revolved beat down its hot rays with unrelenting force. For almost a year she and her team had worked here at the behest of Lord Inquisitor Desjardin. She’d not yet had the pleasure of meeting him. They had been assured there’d be every opportunity to study the artifact. In fact, the Lord Inquisitor would endorse their publication on the matter publically. An endorsement from such an influential Imperial noteworthy could land their article straight in Interstellar History of Humanity, perhaps even the Proceedings of the Terran Academy of Sciences.

  
“This heat, I could do without,” Doctor historicus-linguilogos Terrence Kathar remarked as he sat down beside her, kicking up a cloud of red dust. His pale features had acquired a distinctly pink quality in the few days since he’d left his laboratory at Tel Vicona for the excavation site.

  
“And Zoorak was too cold, wasn’t it, Terry?” Sarina chuckled as she leaned towards him and gave him a kiss. “Is there any weather that pleases you?”

  
“Why, yes,” he grinned as he handed her a canteen of water. “Mild room temperatures.”  Sarina laughed at that and drank from the canteen. Unlike her, Sarina’s husband was a labrat through and through. He much preferred to stay in the air-conditioned hab-block that served as their local research center. However, they had uncovered a new section of script which she wanted him to translate and so she had dragged him out into the light of day.

  
“Doctor Zochina!” Sarina looked up. One of their junior assistants came running towards them. Farshid Narmer. Astute young man, eye for detail. He’d go places, she was certain of it. “We have removed the cover relief!” His dark eyes shone with excitement, his brown cheeks flushed a shade redder from his exertion in the hot sun. “It’s right there, just as you suspected!”

  
Sarina and Terrence rose and followed Farshid along the wall towards the centre relief. The enormous winged scarab had been carefully sanded loose, the slate with it’s ancient motif standing secured against the cliff face. Where it had previously been the rock had been scratched away to reveal a space beyond. Sarina took out her flashlight and heaved herself onto the ledge and through the hole. The chamber beyond was small, barely high enough to crouch in. It’s smooth ceiling was covered in flaking blue and gold paint, featuring what appeared to be a vivid, starry sky. At the back of the hidden chamber stood a stone pedestal upon which sat an elaborately engraved box, its intricate serpentine engravings so expertly made that it seemed as if they moved. An artful illusion, of course, and an extremely skilled one at that.

  
Terry’s face appeared silhouetted against the opening. “Do you need a hand?”

  
“I don’t think that will fit, I can barely move. I'll give it a try first.” She held the flashlight clenched between her chin and chest as she put her arms around the stone case and pulled. It would not budge. However, when she instead took the lid she managed to shift it with considerable effort. As it slid aside centimetre by centimetre, the flashlight’s beam glinted on gold. Within laid a circlet, fashioned into a delicately scaled snake biting it’s own tail. No, not a snake, a peculiar sort of dragon with a vulture’s head. It had too many eyes set with sapphires and turquoise, and the patterns on it's scaled body were uncomfortable to look upon.

  
“This is it,” Sarina said breathlessly as she beheld the priceless antique. “Contact the Lord Inquisitor! Quickly!"

  
Within the hour, their mysterious employer arrived. They could see the capital ship translate into real space even from the surface. A tear of red and pink trailed it as it drifted high overhead like a small, moving constellation against the darkness of interstellar space. Soon, the foreboding black thunderhawk appeared, approaching at a steep decline. It only just managed to sit it's broad bulk down at the edge of the excavation, where the ledge was marginally broader, with a hiss of hydraulics as its turbofans threw up dust. The aft ramp opened and two figures appeared through the clouds. One was a lumbering giant in armour as black as sin. By the sheer bulk of him alone, Sarine thought he must be a Space Marine. She had never met one such, but she had seen depictions and knew how massive and intimidating they were purported to be. The black armoured giant did not disappoint. From his vicious looking chain-axes to his blunt and scarred, beige features he appeared every inch the unfathomable warrior they'd been described to be. A stylised oceanic predator covered his right pauldron, a sigil neither she nor Terrence knew. However, she recognised the skull and crossbone across the capital ‘I’ on the left pauldron.

  
“Death Watch,” she breathed. Space Marines sworn to the Inquisition. Some said they comprised the most skilled warriors their chapter had to offer. Others, far more carefully, dared imply these were only the most brutal and insular of their brethren: unsuited to the strictly coded life within a chapter, but excellent assets to the less regulated life in an Inquisitor's retinue.

  
The second figure was a tall woman, dressed in an armoured bodyglove that showed off a redundant amount of very pale cleavage. The bodyglove was of a deepest blue and finely decorated with gold embroidery and tiny gilded scales that tinkled as she moved. Her light blonde hair was put up in elaborate curls, her wide brimmed hat shielding her from the glaring sun. From her shoulders hung an exquisite coat of pale, grey fur that looked all together too hot for this climate. The symbol that hung from her neck onto her bare breastbone left little of her identity to the imagination, no matter how innocuously the small, elegant, golden ‘I’ winked in the sunlight.

  
“Lord Inquisitor Desjardin,” Sarina said as she inclined her head.

  
“Pleasure,” Lord Inquisitor Vallerie Desjardin returned and smiled, revealing perfectly white teeth. “You have found it?”

  
“Indeed, we have. This way, my lady,” Sarina assured her as she led the Lord Inquisitor along the ledge to the site of their discovery. The large warrior remained silent and maintained an unnervingly exact distance behind them.

  
When Vallerie saw the fabled artifact, long thought lost by her beloved and his kin, her expression lit up with pure pleasure. “That is it, indeed!” she exclaimed as she picked the ancient crown up with delicate reverence. She could feel it thrum with dormant power as she held it. She marvelled for a moment, but then put it back down in its psy-shielded cache with utmost care. “Thrax,” she beckoned, then indicated the engraved box. The giant warrior lumbered over, reached into the cramped space and lifted the box up and out with a grunt. She turned and started back towards the thunderhawk, the Space Marine in tow.

  
“Uhm, our agreement, my lady?” Sarina said as she followed them at a trot.

  
Vallerie smiled her dazzling smile again. “Naturally, this is entirely your discovery, doctor. You will have the finest equipment at your disposal aboard Laturalis. It must be kept in a save environment, you understand.”  
Sarina nodded, reassured.

  
As they walked Thrax picked up one of the old beach loungers the archaeologists had been using to rest during their brief breaks. He put it down when they approached the thunderhawk and Vallerie sat down in it, one long leg neatly across the other. “You may arrange your team for departure,” she declared with a dismissing hand gesture at the archaeologist. She indicated Thrax to put the box down beside her as the woman left to do just that. When he rose she grasped his large hand and gave it a light squeeze to draw his attention. She smiled when he looked down at her. “No witnesses,” she instructed. With a grunt he righted himself, tension rolling up his large frame as he drew his chain axes in one fluid, predatory motion. Her smile broadened a fraction when the ancient weapons roared to life. With two large strides he was among the civilians. Upon the high ledge, they had no where to go. Vallerie inspected her nails as she waited for the screaming to end.

  
When he returned to her side, his black armour was stained the stark crimson of his Legion. His face twitched as the Nails cooled. “Very good!” Vallerie complimented, satisfied with his handiwork. He straightened as he sheathed his axes, clearly pleased with her approval. He picked up the box as she rose. “You are so attentive today,” she added at that. “You deserve a treat, later,” she promised as she stroke his cheek while he was within reach. “There’s a little something I must do first.”

  
She walked out onto the ledge, carefully stepping around the ruined remnants of the archaeologists and their team. The bloody chunks were barely distinguishable as human at all. She picked her way among the carnage, following the tell-tale signs of a kindred mind, albeit a weak one. And yet, it held so much potential. When she came upon the boy her smile faltered. He laid in a pool of what was undoubtedly his own, rapidly cooling blood. A glancing blow, but one that had practically disembowelled him. A light pout creased her perfect features. It was quite the wound, she might break a sweat and she didn’t like that at all. Mindful of her smeared surroundings, she crouched down beside the boy and drew upon her abilities as she put his glistening organs back into his torn chest cavity. Slowly, the flesh started to crawl back in place where it had been sundered and arteries snaked in to nourish it with blood. Moments later his eyes fluttered open. She smiled down at him as she wiped her slender, bloody fingers on an embroidered napkin. “I knew you were special the moment I arrived,” she remarked and reached down to brush a strand of dark hair from his round, olive features. “Sobek will be so very pleased to teach you.”

  
Thrax appeared at her side and she nodded at his questioning look. He shifted the stone box under his arm with a grunt and hoisted the boy up and over his shoulder as if he weighted nothing at all. Farshid made a weak noise of protest as they walked up the ramp and into the thunderhawk, but neither paid him any heed. The thunderhawk lifted off with a great thrust of it's turbofans, shattering the ledge it had rested upon. It rose high and fast, climbing at a steep incline towards the starship high above. Halfway there it turned around and hung motionless for a long moment. Then it's launchers lid up and spat fat, blunt-nosed missiles at the excavation below. Their impact thundered through the valley, reducing the rock relief to rubble and collapsing the shelf and any trace of what had happened there into the ravine below. There would be nothing left to find, not for unduly curious Imperial scions and certainly not for the ancient owner of the artifact.

O       O        O

“You will never guess what I have found, hidden away on some rock,” Vallerie said as she sashayed towards the Thousand Son sorcerer, as ever pouring over one of his many books.

  
Librarian Sobek Memnon glanced up, curiosity and amusement in his dark eyes. “Impossible. It has been lost for nigh on 10.000 years, squirrelled away by one of my brothers before the battle of Pro-.” He stopped, a scowl creasing his dark features as it always did when the topic reared itself. “It was lost,” he repeated and left it at that.

  
She leaned down to kiss him, cupping his jaw in a soothing gesture. She didn’t like the sadness and anger lingering behind his eyes. She smiled and kissed him again, until the frown disappeared. “They may have hidden it,” she whispered. “But not well enough.” She moved her other hand from behind her back, the ancient crown upon her palm. His eyes widened just a fraction when he saw it, and it broadened her smile into a self-satisfied grin.

  
“You shouldn’t have,” Memnon replied, a pleased grin curling up his painted lips, the memory of the traumatic event instantly forgotten as he accepted the powerful Tzeentchian relic from her.

  
“Your reaction makes it worth it every time, darling,” Vallerie replied against his lips and kissed him again. After a long moment she broke the kiss. “Does it hurt, still?” she enquired.

  
Memnon rubbed his neck, his expression painful. “Quite. Worse, in fact. Though it shouldn’t be possible.”

  
Vallerie frowned. “Be that as it may, I found someone suitable. There is some time yet. Assess him.”

  
Memnon smiled and kissed her forehead as he embraced her. “What would I do without you, my precious and clever queen? No, don’t answer that.”

  
Vallerie chuckled but then her expression turned serious once more. “It must be done soon. I’m no Apothecary by any stretch of the imagination, but I studied Thrax as best I cou—.”

  
“I trust you,” Memnon interrupted her. She gave him a stumped look, honestly surprised. He held her against him, one of his large hands resting against her head as he leaned down to touch his cheek against the side of her forehead. She put her arms around his broad chest, returning the tender embrace. “I do,” he repeated. “And besides, I am as good as dead if it keeps growing anyway.”

  
“You won’t,” she said, determined. “You’re going to be fine.”

**Author's Note:**

> A lot of time and hard work went into the creation and publication of this story and as such it is very dear to me. I would love to hear what you thought of it! If you decide to share my story, please credit and link back to me. Thank you!


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